KY lawmakers can whine away. UK was right to cut them out of basketball ticket line.
If anything illustrates how much coronvirus has upended our lives, consider the case of UK men’s basketball tickets, a quite valuable form of currency in Kentucky.
On Monday, state Sen. Damon Thayer whined on Twitter that the University of Kentucky had caved to ‘fearmongering” about COVID-19 by capping attendance at 15 percent of its usual 23,000 capacity at Rupp Arena. He got that warning letter from UK Athletics because he’s one of the 138 lucky legislators, along with other state officials, who gets a shot at buying tickets, an opportunity not awarded to most mere mortals.
It’s long been a UK quid pro quo with state lawmakers: Keep that state funding coming, and get a chance to see the Cats. It’s another perk of elected office, although considerably more valuable than fancy lobbyist cocktail parties, expensive conferences and free parking at the Capitol. Now should this good will/bribery by another name have ever countenanced in the first place, oh wait, never mind.
There’s only two problems. One, the General Assembly has done nothing but cut funding to public universities for the past decade; only about 8 percent of UK’s budget can now be tied to legislative largesse. So that quid stopped with the pro quo a while back.
Second, most season ticket holders can’t buy their tickets without a hefty donation to the K Fund. The better the seat, the higher the required donation. So those seats on the floor in front of everyone cost a $5,000 donation, plus $1,500 per season tickets. Even for the nosebleed seats, you have to pony up between $950 and $1,000. But legislators don’t have that requirement so they are of very little value to UK Athletics. It’s an easy choice to cut them out.
Spokesman Jay Blanton confirmed that while final decisions aren’t yet made, ticket purchases will be decided by the number of K Fund points, the same process they used for football. He also made it clear it’s not personal.
“We have nothing but a deep respect for policymakers, who are juggling lots of tough issues, none of them easy,” he said. “We have never, and will never, question that, as we know they want to provide the university with as much support as possible and, in fact, have made critical investments in recent years in initiatives such as our Healthy Kentucky Research Building among others.
Now one of those tough issues is staying in session on home game nights instead of adjourning early. Of course, many lawmakers also have bigger bullhorns to complain about the UK decisions, especially if those decisions align with the science-based recommendations of Gov. Beshear and the state health department that legislators like Thayer oppose.
So keep on whining about fearmongering, Senator Thayer. It’s still not going to get you in the Rupp Arena door, for reasons that are not solely about COVID-19.
And maybe, when all this is over, UK will realize that putting legislators at the front of the line just doesn’t pay off anymore.
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 1:58 PM.
